Most viewers hang with Rockets-Thunder until the bitter end

Given the one-sided nature of the proceedings, Houston TV viewers were surprisingly faithful in seeing Sunday night’s Rockets loss to Oklahoma City through to the bitter end.

The game had an average Nielsen rating of 5.7 on TNT and a 0.99 rating on Comcast SportsNet Houston. That’s a 6.7 rating combined for the two channels and an average audience of about 148,500 households.

The CSNH audience topped out at 1.5 between 9:45 and 10 p.m., then dropped substantially before climbing back to about a 1.0 rating at the end of the game. Presumably viewers wanted to see whether the Rockets would get the spread within 30 points or, more importantly, if Calvin Murphy would rend his garment in rhetorical mourning on CSNH’s postgame show. The TNT audience topped out at 6.9 between 9:45 and 10 p.m.

The game was the most-watched English-language program in prime time on Houston TV on Sunday night; the closest was CBS’ “The Mentalist” at 5.6 on KHOU (Channel 11). For comparison purposes, Lakers-Spurs on KTRK (Channel 13) did a 4.5 rating on Sunday afternoon. The national TNT broadcast of Rockets-Thunder averaged 3.3, and the game did a 14.7 rating in Oklahoma City, a 6.6 rating in San Antonio, 3.5 in Austin and 2.9 in Dallas-Fort Worth.

The almost 6-to-1 spread in households in favor of TNT over CSN Houston was less pronounced in some of the demographics. It was 3-to-1 in favor of TNT in persons 25-54 and about 4-to-1 in adults 18-49.

It’s been so long, in relative terms, since the Rockets’ last playoff excursion that I had forgotten that the first-round games in 2009 aired on KTXH (Channel 20) alongside the national carriers. I didn’t keep any ratings information for that series because I was on vacation during that series, but I do note that the first two games of the second-round series between the Rockets and Lakers averaged 12.5 and 14.4 on TNT that season.

I watched the entire painful game. I predicted 2 Rocket wins, will adjust that to one now. We are out-classed for sure.

My first time this year to see the Rox live. Who to blame? Les Alexander has proven himself to me, will not disparage him – yet. Crane has proven himself to me, also. Crane has 55% of the blame for no TV, Comcast, Dish, Direct, U Verse have 43% of the blame, 2% to Alexander. IMHO